


A hunger artist

by EllaMason



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, post-seine not AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 18:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2160792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaMason/pseuds/EllaMason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fasting is not the absence of food but the absence of need. In a perverse way, it is his triumph, to be released at last from physical bonds. What use is food when the spirit is bereft?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A hunger artist

The mornings always take their toll. Six hours that lie implacably before him. Six boulders to be chiseled away, each moment to be hoisted and borne upon his shoulders until his body, which has never failed him before, threatens to buckle beneath the mass of hollow time. Six hours before he mounts the six short steps to the Pontmercys’ fine blue door.

Afterwards, it will be easier, for there is no more need for activity or the pretence of it. He retires when he returns to Rue Plumet, early as it it may be, and closes his eyes against the bare walls. It is not unfamiliar, this new life he has created for himself - he knows each twist in the road as he might half-remember a moment from a dream. Each time he hears his name spoken - the same name that once he had imagined he might be rid of forever - he feels it settle more securely around his wrists and throat. The last time he went to the cellar, there was no fire in the grate. No matter. There is something weightless about him now. Through all his years spent in flight, he always knew he would be called to account someday.

Today is different. Sunlight creeps uninvited through the cracks between the blinds as he dresses, bright shafts highlighting the scars and sinews of his flesh. His stomach lurches at the sight, and he knows he chose well. A man can no more escape his actions than escape his own mind. Even in the warmth of an August morning, his body reveals his secrets in ways that even the kindest light will not excuse. Still he dresses, as he must, buttoning away the worst of the damage and offering up his morning prayers.

In the dining room, a hopeful breakfast of rolls, butter and coffee lies ready for him, complete with a folded newspaper beside his empty plate. The sight fills him with mingled pleasure and sorrow, and the guilt of his string of untouched meals moves him to his seat. The room is warm. Toussaint has taken care to set out a fresh napkin and an unobtrusive dish of sugar. She would be happier at the Rue Filles-du-Calvaire, where such attentions might be welcome. Still, he does his best for her sake as she does her best for his. He takes up a small brown roll, determined to make a token effort.

It is not until the bread is in his palm, split neatly apart with a blunt knife, that he chances to look up and across the table. The opposite chair is as it should be: untouched beneath the table. Valjean stills. The blood that pumped so carelessly through his veins halts. For a moment, he wonders if it will restart and if, indeed, he has any more need of it. And there. He regains his breath and tears his eyes away from the empty space. He puts the roll and knife on the plate, turning his attention to the newspaper.

Loathe as he is to admit it, he has not had the taste for reading for weeks now.Where once he could rely on the simplest tale to lift his spirits and transport him to some brighter place, now he strains to focus on the words before him, re-reading each sentence over and over without noticing. Of all the changes, it seems the most frivolous, but the loss is a dull ache. To skim a page without plunging within; to sup without tasting. Still, his weaknesses are his own. And here he may well be some tidbit that might amuse Cosette. It is reason enough to try, at least.

There is little to be found. The comings and goings of the aristocracy, the happenings of the theatre, the sensational murders - they lie indifferent upon the page. He turns each page, more conscious of the black smudge of ink on his hands than of the words themselves, which loosen to a dim blur. It is only by chance that a headline near the back pages catches his eye. But, ah, once it is caught-

 _Laundress recovers body of lost police inspector._

Surely not. He reads the article twice to be certain. 

It is barely a paragraph, but the facts are there, and as Valjean reads, he feels the Earth tilt beneath him. It is an explanation, to be sure. And, of course, the pieces fit together - how else to explain, as he has never been able to, why Javert released him that night? Here is an answer. The unfortunate man had lost his senses. So there is the end of the mystery. 

It is not quite a relief. He had imagined, with what he now recognises as arrogance, that his actions at the barricade had touched Javert in some small way. That Javert had offered him his life as part of some unspoken bargain or, foolish as he now knew the thought to be, some newfound mercy. But no. He was out of his mind, most likely already gone by the time he met Valjean at the sewer entrance. And drowned. Drowned. There is no comfort in the knowledge.

Still, it is an explanation. Strange to learn that he is free from Javert once and for all, but take no comfort in the knowledge. The thought of Earthly condemnation seems so distant a thing. He folds the paper, wrinkling it between his hands, and stands, leaving the breakfast as it lies. 

A sinful waste. But he does not feel hunger even after days without. He would know it in a moment - has known the claws of starvation all his life, and it is altogether different. To starve is to suffer deprivation. It is a torment. This fasting is not the absence of food but the absence of need. In a perverse way, it is his triumph, to be released at last from physical bonds. What use is food when the spirit is bereft? He stands and, to his surprise, his morning tilts on its edges. It only lasts a moment - a sudden loss of balance that swings his mind sideways while his body remains upright. He grips the back of his chair a little tighter and then, certain that his balance has righted itself, leaves the table.

There is much to be done. He has come to learn that his days end with his afternoon visits to the Marais, that his trials will last for as long as it takes him to mount the six steps to Monsieur Gillenormand’s fine blue door. If this is the case, he must complete his business before setting out, since nothing will be done after he returns. Waiting in his study are expenses to review, letters to write, the daily business of the gentleman’s life he has created for himself. The stack of papers at his desk has mounted over the weeks, and an urgent voice in his mind insists that he should attend to his duties - that he does not have much time left - but his hand and mind will work no faster, and his stack of papers becomes two stacks - three. Still he continues at his tortuous pace. The house is silent, save for the clattering of Toussaint in the far room. It should do him good to remember the rustle of lace and snatches of song from Cosette's chamber. But each memory is a weight on his heart. The papers remain undisturbed. 

He spends an hour in his garden, taking what pleasure he can in the late bloom of his roses. He sprinkles water across the grass, listening for birdsong and the shouts of passing children. But what he hears, he hears as if through glass. After five years of enforced silence at the convent, it was once a pleasure to sing tunelessly to the flowers. But his voice sounds distant. For all the beauty of these reds and yellows, he cannot match their fire when he knows they will not last.

September will follow and autumn will burn the colours to the heavens, leaving the scarred corpses of trees and filling the streets with crisp leaves for children to play in. And then winter. But by winter he already knows that nothing will remain in his garden. Even now, despite the colours, nothing remains that will be missed. There is nothing even now. She is already gone and it is for the best. He knows how she blossoms without him. 

A swallow passes overhead, crying into the treetops. Valjean remains upright, though he feels the shuddering sway of the Earth at his feet. See, though, he tells himself, bolder now. She blossoms without him. If he can think it then he can speak it. She is happy with her husband. The words are not so hard to find. But his tongue is dry and sluggish, and when he opens his mouth, his breath scrapes the back of his throat. How can it be so long since he last spoke?

Still, he admits defeat. He will be ready enough to accept it soon. 

To the streets, then, to give alms. And here at least is a task that still holds his interest. The beggars may not shiver and huddle as they do in winter, but more than a passing glance reveals the sunken eyes and exposed bones of bodies deprived. Perhaps, Valjean thinks as he presses a coin to a trembling palm, it is easier to forget human suffering in fine weather. But sunshine alone does not bring an end to human suffering. Did the city not learn as much in July? Certainly the insurgents did. Certainly Javert did.

He glances at the beggar again and the man lifts his head. _The predator's eyes fasten upon him from beneath ragged cloth. That clenched jaw becoming terrifying as the lips pull back to bare -_ he jolts backwards. It is not real. It is not the case. The man squinting up at him is pale and fair-haired, aged beyond his years. It is not Javert. Javert is no more. It is only - he cannot explain the vision. As it is, he mouths a blessing, tugs his cap lower, and continues on his way. 

Why Javert?  The morning's news is surely explanation enough. And, of course, the sight of Javert is nothing new. For five years now, he has caught that shadowed figure darting at the corner of his eye - has become attuned to the pricking of hair at the back of his neck that signals a nearby threat, just as the hare might sense the presence of a hound. And for all that the world is still full of dangers - must be, for if it were not, he would not live alone and would not refuse meals - Javert has come to embody some part of that danger in his mind. Removing Javert does not remove the danger, only the familiar face of the threat. 

The rest of his walk passes without incident, if not easily. He gives because he must - for what else is there to do - but he does not linger and cannot find the voice to offer more comfort than a pressed hand and a weak smile. Each step comes faster than the last. It will not be long now, and his mind is elsewhere, drifting into the guarded place where desperate anticipation meets despair. One moment spills into the next, sweeping him back to Rue Plumet, through ablutions and a change of clothes, lifting and bearing him on towards the last half hour. The hardest journey of all.

Cosette's new home is not so far a walk - on a good day, a healthy man could make the journey in just over fifteen minutes. But his strength fades and his will along with it. The walk takes him longer each day. 

The ground sinks with each tread, slipping beneath his feet in crashing waves. And Valjean, who might once have imagined himself a galleon, is a fishing boat at the mercy of the tides and the moon, lashed by the sting of salt water. Glorious with disorientation. He leans for a moment against the corner of a wall and the street tilts along with him, the brick of the wall unyielding even as he feels it pivot under his hand. Gentlemen stride by intheir coats and canes, unaffected by the shifting cobblestone. Valjean breathes. He remembers the sound of laughter, the promise of words and shared confidences - however strained - and the sweet scent of apples, long since lost to Rue Plumet. The walk is harder every day, even today, even as his feet seem to pick their own way, seasick on dry land.

He has been hungry all of his life - for as long as he can remember, he has gone without. But what seemed to be hunger in his youth was not like this. The dull pain of a body that only knew that it had not been given enough but had never known what  _enough_ was - that could not conceive that there is no such thing as _enough_ : that hunger will never be satisfied after a taste. This now, this sacrifice of nourishment, is a bright agony that lifts him with each step. What had been slow at first is now almost joyful, to be consumed in the blaze, to sink into the void that is Valjean. 

He has not eaten a full meal in over a week. And though he will never confess it to Cosette or Toussaint - another lie in the service of redemption - it is as much a choice as an affliction. He feels his soul's inexorable rise in spite of the burden of his sins. He has confessed himself and accepted the penance of this starvation, and through his penance he can soar. The Earth swings about him and it is an effort to stay on the ground. If he were to lift his feet, he imagines he might float away untethered.

An image come to mind, unbidden, that drags him back to earth. The ordered stamp of newsprint across paper. Javert.     

There were no pictures, but he sees it clearly enough, the bloated, broken form, lost to the river. To drown must be a terrible thing - to be filled up and choking, to face that final struggle for freedom and air. He has seen enough of Javert over the years. Throughout it all, from those sharp-prickled days in Montreuil through to the spitting fury of the barricades, Javert remained upright and determined, and always with those hands that twitched at this sides. Those broad hands that never seemed satisfied until those few black moments when they settled upon Valjean's shoulders. Javert's grip was never tight enough to bruise, but it had never needed to. For most men, Javert's hand on their shoulder was a promise that they would soon be marked by irons and the lash.

No. Javert was not the type to drown himself. Valjean shivers, remembering the rasp of breath against his jaw as Javert held him firmly in place. No, not the type to drown himself at all. Javert had a hunger all of his own, much as both of them had been determined to deny it. 

He himself could well have drowned. How easy it would have been to lose himself in the clutch of his daughter’s trusting hand. If she had not needed to be protected from him, how simple it would have been to sink himself in something so new and precious as love. If he had not seen his own selfishness for what it was, how easy it would have been to stay. He has never done what is easy. Instead, he chooses to do without. 

_But now that danger is gone -_ the thought is unexpected, and tantalising. _If Javert is no more, what is to stop you from returning?_

He stumbles, as the Earth rights itself quickly enough to throw him off balance. The cobbles stones lap at his ankles but remain still. He raises his hand, sees the raw scrape of brickwork across the centre of his palm. It would be so easy. He could knock on the door and beg to be taken back - Cosette would allow it, she would never have to know. This Monsieur Jean? Some strange whim of her father’s, soon forgotten. The very idea - to be her father once again - 

But what about Marius, who already knows the truth well enough? Who rejects his money and leaves no fire in the grate? There may be no Javert, but there is still a Valjean for as long as his name and crimes remain. They will follow him to his end. 

His walk does not take him past the Seine, and he is grateful for it. Let him keep to the path he has already chosen. Cosette is waiting, safe in the arms of her husband. There is no telling how long she will wait.

Madness. Whatever troubled Javert in his last hours, Valjean cannot say. But if he has not known madness, he has seen the darkest hour of more than one night, and known how a soul can yearn for comfort. Had Javert behaved unusually that night? Valjean's memories are soaked with sweat and blood, but one memory is clear: the weight of Marius's body, borne like a treetrunk upon his back, eased as Javert hoisted the boy's feet. And Valjean could have laughed even in the despair of that night, for this was more mercy than Javert knew: now that he was to be taken from Cosette, at least she would not be left alone. 

There had been nothing remarkable in Javert's bearing that night. He sat upright in the carriage. He was abrupt with Marius's grandfather. And as they made their way - half marching, half swaying from exhaustion - back to Rue Plumet, the hand on Valjean's shoulder had not trembled, but grasped. If the clutch of Javert's hand had been that of a man grasping for a lifeline, he had not known it. The memories are faint. Did Javert meet his eyes when they spoke at his gate? He remembers them glinting black at the sewer, but he can see them later, lowered. Perhaps. Perhaps not. His memory is not what it has been. Perhaps he remembers Montreuil - Javert's confession, strung through with shame and pride of different shades. When Javert demanded to be turned out, he stood as upright as ever. He was inscrutable. It was his nature. If his soul had been in turmoil - if Valjean had _known_ -

But he did not know, and now it is too late. Another oversight. Another sin to be added to his record. Another lurching turn of the Earth. 

Perhaps it comes with knowledge, this sensation. Perhaps now that he is adrift from everything, he left his senses behind with his beloved things. What use is it, after all? That protective shield that comforts men with the belief that they are rooted to the ground. The ground floats upon the sea, does it not? The ground shifts beneath men's feet in miniscule degrees each moment of the day. As he has rid himself of each other part of his life, perhaps in the process he lost track of such notions as gravity and solidity. There is no wind at this time of day, but still he feels a chill. He feels the cold more swiftly in his old age.

The polished brass and marble statues of the Marais rise about him as he presses on. It will not be long now. Soon he will crouch in the unlit cellar where his daughter is not his daughter and his name is his own. Perhaps his mind has already rid itself of Valjean's miserable form. Perhaps he floats above, where a polite handshake cannot burn and the loss of kisses cannot starve. Perhaps he is already left, and all that remains is for his soul to follow. He should not go. If he must be exiled, should he not accept it? Why tie himself to the places he can never return?

But for now he has permission, and so he cannot help but continue. If his feet have a purpose, it is to walk this final track, to the place where there will be - for an hour or so, at least, rest and comfort and familiar sounds. There will be the music of Cosette's fancies and the deadly comfort of some stolen brush of a hand against his. (And how different, and yet how similar, the desperation in a hand that grasps a hand, a shoulder, a collar.) And it will not last, but for as long as he can have it, he will take it. And if it prolongs his starvation, at least the wait will be a thing he can bear.

He should not prolong the suffering of others for the sake of his own heart, but he has always been a selfish man. The ground shifts again, and he stumbles a second time, catching himself against an iron railing. The busy streets are far behind him now. The cries of gamins and the clash of heels across cobbles have faded, leaving only the rising snarl of the hounds that guard the fine houses. 

He levels his gaze, and before him he sees the blue door to Cosette’s new home, set above the street, six steps high. He straightens himself, brushes his raw palms, and ascends.


End file.
